April and May Montage

Well, hello there. It's me again. You know, the long lost blogger who isn't so great at blogging. I could give you lots of reasons why I haven't blogged in so long, many of which I've given before...busy life, slow internet, etc. The main reason though is because blogger wouldn't let me. Honest. I tried and tried for almost a week and I couldn't get any photos to upload, and seriously, what's a post without some photos? Eventually, I gave up and haven't really thought about it in a while.

However, we've had some significant changes here that make this journal a little more important to keep up with. The main one being that one of our birdies has flown the nest. :o( She didn't just fly to a nearby tree, no, she up and married herself a military bird and flew to the other side of the US. This mommy bird is very sad, but very happy for her and her new life too. Let's change the subject, shall we, before the faucets on my eyes start leaking again.

Anyway, as I look back through my photos, I realize there is no way to update in detail, so I'm going to give you a couple of photo montages to help speed things up a bit. Here's the first two months:

 April:
1. It looked like spring was finally coming. The snow was melting and the creek was starting to flow. (4/4)
2. Had to include this one again, just LOVE that outfit. :o) (4/8)
3. Spring? Who said spring was coming? How about a couple more inches of snow instead? (4/12)
4. Yep, more snow. (4/14)
5. Oh, looks like it's melting again.(4/17)
6. So, yeah, I had several "firsts" on my birthday this year...I've never made a snowman on my birthday, or shoveled snow, or almost been snowed in. (4/18)
7. That's what our snowman looked like the next morning! (4/19)
8. Trying to find fun things to do inside. (4/19)
9. Thought we'd help the squirrels out by hiding some peanuts in the trees for them. Had to get them up high so our dogs didn't find them. :o) (4/22)
10. Could that be? Looks like spring is coming after all. (4/22)
11. SERIOUSLY?!? More snow!?! (4/23)
12. Ah, that's what spring is supposed to look like. (4/28)

One day I don't have a photo for is April 1. Our daughter Angel flew out to CA to marry her military man, Tyler Brooks. It's a long, complicated story, but she didn't move out to CA right away. She has a couple of photos from the day, but I don't have copies of them.

 

May:

1. Um, yeah, more snow. (5/2)

2. Why haven't we thought of this before? Use the snow on the deck and make a snowman to greet people by the door. Love it! She didn't last long though. (5/2)

3. We decided to escape the snow and head to Iowa so my wonderfully smart hubby could walk across stage and get his Master's Degree. Go Mike!!! Doesn't he look handsome, and smart, and handsome? Sorry. (5/5)

4. Well, better late than never. (5/18)

5. Can you believe there was snow on the ground 2 weeks before this? Shorts! Seriously? (5/19)

6. Oops, this should go before #5. Michelle and I flew to CO to help celebrate with several nieces and nephews as they graduated High School. Managed to get a photo with both my parents and all but one sibling. And we're almost all looking at the camera too. :o)

7. Yes, we have to get some school work done, but that doesn't mean your outfits have to be boring. Love the tutu. (5/22)

8. And you thought you had a dandelion problem in your yard! (No, this is not my yard, just a field nearby.) (5/26)

So, that was our April and May in photos. I will try and get June and July done tomorrow. 

Till next time...

God's love and blessings

Errand running day

Today is Wednesday, and around here that means piano lessons and errands to run. Our local grocery store has a special on milk on Wednesday, so we make sure to stop by there after piano lessons to pick up a couple gallons. Our next stop is always the library across the street, and today we also had to drop by the bank and post office. All this happens right after lunch and manages to make our home school day a bit shorter than usual. That's OK, we just do a little extra on Monday to make up for it. :o) One of the things I love about home schooling--it's flexible.

Before our errands, Michelle helped me with some cupcakes for a sweet young girl at church that happens to share a birthday with me. Michelle liked using my new pasta roller to roll out the chocolate clay for the flowers. I wish I'd gotten photos of her working, but we were racing the clock on these.

After our errands, Michelle worked on her math and I worked on some decorations for our Ladies' Salad Supper this Saturday. I found a great idea over at the Fiskars site and thought it was just what we needed. Some pretty pops of spring color.

I have all the flowers cut out and I'm hoping to enlist some help after church this evening to fluff out all those flowers. We have 185+ flowers to do, but I've learned that many hands make light work. Not to mention, if I fluffed them all out here at home, I'd need a very LARGE box to transport them all to the church. This way they won't get squished, and it will get done faster.

Do you see that yellow album in front of Michelle? That's something new going on around here. I became a Stampin' Up! demonstrator again. I'm very excited to be in a very active group and have lots of ideas planned for upcoming classes and such. That album is one I was working on yesterday. In fact, I finished all 20 pages in less than 2 hours!! Well, it's not exactly finished, I'm printing up photos for it, but the layouts and embellishments are all done and it should only take a couple of minutes to put the photos in once they're printed. I'll be posting more about it and the class for it on my craft blog later this weekend.

I guess we have several new jobs around here. Angel just signed up as a Mary Kay Consultant, and Nick just started his new job at a computer repair shop nearby. Lots of new stuff.

Well, it's time we were off to church.

Till next time...
God's love and blessings!

Journaling with Michelle

Well, hello there! Thanks for stopping by. It's been a while hasn't it? It would probably be even longer except my dear daughter told me I needed to get on here and update this. She has a journal she has to do for school work, and I'm always reminding her of how much she will enjoy going back and reading that journal later on. She turned that around and used it on me. :o) We decided that while she is working on her journal, I have to work on mine, so, here I am. My posts will have to be short, 'cause she doesn't spend much time on hers, but at least I'll be getting on here regularly--I hope.

So, what have we been up to? Playing in snow. Yep, we still have snow, lots and lots of snow. It has started to melt, and Michelle enjoys playing in the creek now that it's flowing.

New rain boots.

I realize it doesn't look like we still have lots of snow in these pictures. They were taken at the beginning of April when the snow was just starting to melt, however, we've had several late snow showers.

That same area looks like this today.

What's on our agenda for today? School work, house cleaning and laundry. I'm not looking forward to that last one. We seem to have a dead rodent somewhere in the laundry room, but can't find him. He must be in the walls or under the water pump or softener. Either way, we can't get to him so there's not much we can do about it. Definitely not a pleasant smell and I've been avoiding that room for a couple of days. I can't avoid it any longer. Mt. Washmore is getting quite large and I'm sure my sweet hubby would appreciate clean socks to wear to work tomorrow. Maybe it will get warm enough to open the window?!? I can hope, can't I?

I will leave you with one last look at my silly girl. Love this outfit. Some of the snow was too deep and mushy for her new boots (and I think she was actually walking IN the creek), so she put on mine. She didn't want to change from the dress she was wearing and couldn't find her leggings, so she found a really LONG pair of socks to help keep her legs warm. Too funny!

Well, I'm off to the laundry room. Wonder if we have any nose plugs around here somewhere?

Till next time...
God's love and blessings!

A Picture of Us

Ok, so maybe it isn't really a picture of us personally, but, as anyone who knows our family would realize, it definitely represents the two of us. Besides, titling this post "Our Bed" would have been a little weird. ;o)

We were at Ikea last year and I really wanted a duvet cover. We don't have a duvet, but I figured a duvet cover is just like a giant pillowcase and it would work just as well with our comforter stuffed inside it as it would a duvet. I like our comforter, but it's so big I have to take it to the laundromat to use their big machines to wash it. When you have a dog that sleeps at the foot of the bed, you find the need to wash the bed covers increases dramatically. The duvet cover is small enough to fit in my washer which means less trips to the laundromat. :o) I really fell in love with this one, but thought it would be too girly for my handsome hubby. He assured me it would be fine and that he didn't mind getting it. He loves me like that. He knows my tastes and is willing to sacrifice for me.

Then, he got the cool Captain America pillow from a sweet friend for Christmas. It's made from felt and has arm loops in the back so when he and Michelle get their nerf guns out, he has his own personal shield. How cool is that? Anyway, he didn't know where he was going to store it and I said to put it on the bed. He mentioned that it didn't quite match the whole pink, frilly, victorian kind of look we had going in there, but I think it fits perfectly. It's so US!I think I may need to make Michelle a shield now.

What about you? Any interesting things in your house that really represent you and your personalities? How do you blend the masculine with the feminine stuff?

Till next time...
God's love and blessings!

PS: I posted a tutorial over on the craft blog on this chore chart I made for Michelle this week.

rusty cookie sheet turned cute chore chart. ;o)

What's in a Name Part 2

I am so very sorry. I shouldn't have left y'all hanging like that. I know it's just been killing you the last day or so wanting to know "what does it mean?", "why does she call it an upside down house?". (I have no idea how to punctuate that sentence correctly.) Well, my dear readers, I have come to the rescue. Wonder no more. (OK, so maybe I'm getting a little dramatic. That happens when you spend the afternoon doing history read-alouds with your 9 year old.)

Our adventures in an upside down house. Maybe this photo will help solve the mystery.

Do you see that door? Yep, that one up there on the deck. That's our front door. It leads to the living room, dining room and kitchen along with the master bedroom and a bathroom. The downstairs has the kids bedrooms, laundry and what would normally be a family room, but we use it as our school/craft space. So you see, instead of the kitchen on the ground floor, like a normal house, it's up a flight of stairs. Not fun to bring groceries in, or in the case of my favorite hobby, to bring cakes down. Yep, our house is upside down, but we love it. Sitting in the living room looking out the big picture window, you feel like you're in a tree house. :o)

Someday we hope to move some earth next to the house and add on a basement below and a garage above, along with a mud room and a master bathroom. (Ooh, a master bathroom would be SO nice). That way, the kitchen and living room would actually be level with the ground and the downstairs would be considered a walk-out basement (although, that's what the realtor called it when we bought the place.) Someday. For now, I just keep telling myself that those stairs are a built in work out for me, especially on days when I'm working on a cake and I have to go up and down them a couple of times to get to the big fridge that's in the garage. :o)

On another note, I've decided to keep the craft blog. I realized that many of my friends and family who read this have no desire to read about the crafts that I do, and that some who are interested in craft tutorials (which I hope to start putting on there) have no interest in what we are up to as a family. So, I'll just give you a sneaky-peak here of any projects and direct you to the craft blog if you want more info.

Well, it sounds like the dryer is done, which means I get to go fold laundry now. :o)

Till next time...
God's love and blessings.

What's In A Name?

Well, lookie here, another evening with all my chores done (yay) and no hubby home (boo). Since he isn't home needing the internet to get school work done, I have a bit of time to chat with you.

You may have noticed in my last post that I decided to change the name of the blog and thought you might like to know why I chose Berried Treasure. You see, we moved into this house in the spring of '09. It was so beautiful out and we have 25 acres, so the kids and I spent many afternoons exploring the woods and taking lots of pictures. Most evenings we spent telling hubby about all the neat things we discovered and it got to a point where he was asking us what new "treasures" we'd found that day.

There were lots of flowers,

some trash,

a few odd things,

but the things that got me the most excited were the berries. As the summer went on we kept discovering new areas of berries growing. We found raspberries, black caps, blackberries, wild strawberries and even some wild grapes.

And so, Berried Treasure is in honor of all the fun things this property holds for us.

What about the part about living in an "upside down house"? I'll guess you'll have to wait till next time to hear about that. :o) 

Till next time...
God's love and blessings!

Family update

Well now, hello there. How nice of you to visit my little blog. It would probably be nice if I visited it once in a while and kept it updated wouldn't it? Ah well, such is life. Sometimes it is better to live life rather than blog about it. And then, sometimes things happen in life that you just can't blog about and since those things seems to be the overwhelming stuff of life right then, there doesn't seem to be much else to write about.

Anyway, I am back (for now). My sweet hubby is at a meeting tonight, and since I have no cakes to work on and the house work is done, I thought I might drop in here and post a little update on life. My last post was back in October and after looking at my photos I realize a lot has happened in the past few months.

November:
We had quite a bit of transitioning going on here in the home. Our son, Nick moved back home after his time in the Air Force and our daughter, Angel finished her cosmetology school and moved out. Talk about mixed emotions going on.

The highlight of November was a visit from my sister's family for Thanksgiving. We had such a good time. I really do wish they lived closer. I think my sis and I spent the first 5 days of their visit in the kitchen though, so this photo sums up the week for us. I forgot to put the camera on auto focus when I handed it to Michelle. Oops. Oh well, it may be blurry, but it's one of my favorites.

We had a bit of a snowstorm come in the last night they were visiting so the kids had to get out and play in it a bit.

Here we are just before they left. We had to goof around a bit so I wouldn't cry. I always cry. :o(

December:
December, of course brought Christmas and all it's fun traditions. We added a new one this year. Michelle often looks over my shoulder while I'm browsing Pinterest and she was always intrigued by the Elf on a Shelf ideas posted there. I couldn't see paying $30 for a stuffed elf, so we made one. We don't do the Santa/elf thing here, but it was a bit of fun to make believe that Emma, our Christmas friend was getting into mischief at night. Michelle loved looking for her each morning and coming up with ideas for her. Maybe next year I will have time to post her adventures, but for this year I'll just post a couple of our favorites.

She's in the fridge eating MY chocolate!

"Making" gingersnaps.

January:
Technically this one would be December, and I don't have any photos, but Angel's long-time boyfriend proposed to her on New Year's Eve. So, now we are planning a wedding in September. I think this is going to be a VERY busy year.

I didn't take very many photos in January. In fact, except to take photos of cakes, I haven't had my camera out much at all. I think I need to remedy that. I love looking back and reminiscing, but that's hard to do when you don't have photos to reminisce over in the first place.

I did get a few of the birds outside my office window. I think they're called redpolls, but I'm not sure. They definitely like thistle though. Which reminds me, I better get the feeder filled up tomorrow.

Speaking of my office window. I will leave you with this photo of our Layla. She has learned to jump on the patio chair and tap on the window when she wants to come in. This is how she always looks when she comes in now, our little black snowball. :o) Too cute for words.

Well, till next time (which hopefully will be sooner than 4 months from now ;o)
God's love and blessings!

PS. Did you notice the new name and header? Keeping up with 3 blogs was just too much. I will keep my cake one separate, but I think I will use this one for family updates as well as craft and DIY projects and no longer post to the craft one. Especially since most of the projects are for around our home anyway. I'll post more on the name choice later. ttfn!